January & Forward

So, thanks to a combination of raw momentum and what I assume is the word slowly getting out about how awesome I am (j/k), January was my best sales month to date. It’s pretty gratifying to see even a few sales and few bad reviews. The biggest complaint I seem to be getting so far is that my shorter works are too short, and I can’t really say that’s a terribly big problem. xD

I’m making slow but steady progress on Legacy. It’s a much bigger undertaking than Elegy was, not only because it’s attempt #2 at a sequel, but I’m also not rushing through it during NaNo. It’s opening up a lot about the world and the characters, revealing things about them that even I didn’t know. I’ve completed first draft work on the first act (about 6 chapters) and I’m now moving into the middle, which is always a dangerous place. Luckily, this time I have an outline of where I want to be headed, so I think it’s just going to be a matter of time. It’s much harder to get lost when you’ve already drawn the path to follow, and I really am excited about telling this story. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun when it’s done.

That being said, I don’t know exactly how long it’s going to take. In the meantime, I’m working on a series of short stories to continue the far-future sci-fi that I started in Dutiful Daughter – the next installment, tentatively entitled “The Prisoner of Vega”, is going up for review at my writer’s group this weekend. Right now I’m considering serializing this story on my site, and then compiling it all into an ebook at the end. That way I don’t have to worry about covers and formatting for a bunch of stories. The distribution level won’t be as high, but hopefully I can pull in some regular readers if I’m updating regularly. I think weekly 1,000-word installments will work, and give me enough time to write more in between.

It’s difficult to prioritize when you’ve got a zillion stories running around in your head, begging to be told, but I’m managing. I knew that writing was going to be slow going, especially given the fact that I work 40 hours a week, I am currently finishing my bachelor’s degree and have, y’know, a wife and a dog that need attention and my normal gaming addictions to contend with.